Clarendon's version of this famous moral tale in which a mysterious piper rids the town of Hamelin of rats is taken from the Robert Browning poem (as illustrated in one surviving German intertitle in verse). This version of the story was a standard of the Edwardian nursery and would have been familiar to many in Britain, but the legend on which Browning based his poem has European antecedents and would ensure that the film would appeal to a wider audience across the continent. The film uses some fine trick photography to portray the cave into which the children of Hamelin follow the Piper; it also features real rats.
Surviving footage (8:46)
